Above The Law Despite Misdeeds, Cops Who Betray The Badge Often Manage To Hang Onto Jobs.

July 21, 1991|By FRED SCHULTE and MARGO HARAKAS, Staff Writers

Samuel Newson knew more about street crime than most people who apply for police work.

He had been arrested five times, once for assault with intent to murder, records state.

But members of Florida`s police commission gave the aspiring cop a break. In 1981, they granted him a license to fight crime for the Pompano Beach Police Department.

Officer Newson betrayed the badge.

He harassed a citizen. He was arrested again for assault. And, brandishing a handgun, he threatened to kill his boss. In all, his work file cites 11 acts of serious misconduct through the years.

Yet Newson remains on the Pompano Beach force and is still licensed to work for any Florida police agency.

The Sun-Sentinel has unmasked thousands of police officers who have held on to, or obtained, law enforcement powers despite misdeeds or other troubling behavior.

The six-month investigation found that Florida`s police-licensing commission has overlooked thousands of examples of police wrongdoing, has tended to impose timid or uneven penalties -- and typically has taken years to make its decisions.

The bottom line: Despite a decade of experience, the police-standards commission cannot assure citizens that they will not fall prey to officers whose patterns of misconduct or dismal job performance have been documented for years.

The state`s Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission, most of whose 17 members are picked by the governor to license cops and root out renegades, is little known to the public.

The commission sets employment standards for 32,000 Florida police officers. Under the law, it must pull the licenses of officers convicted of a felony or a crime of perjury.

The commission also is free to decertify officers for about 60 moral- character offenses, whether or not criminal charges are filed.

The panel revokes about 100 licenses a year, mostly for drug or sex crimes. On paper, it is a powerful regulatory group, enjoying a reputation as one of the nation`s most competent and toughest such boards.

Yet many bad cops go free.

The newspaper`s findings are based on a computer analysis of more than 100,000 employment records of former and current officers. Also reviewed were thousands of pages of commission documents and police files.

Among the conclusions:

-- More than 8,000 Florida officers have left jobs since 1981 amid allegations of misdeeds or other evidence of unfitness. Many escaped police commission scrutiny.

-- The commission or its staff has taken no action in 60 percent of 1,500 police misconduct cases reviewed since 1981.

-- Police departments routinely fail to report misconduct that could lead to license revocation, despite state regulations requiring that they do so.

``We`ve talked to (police) agencies we feel maybe don`t report the number of complaints we might expect,`` said commission director Jeffrey W. Long. ``It is something we want to address.``

-- Sam Newson applied for a police license in 1980, the year the Florida Legislature gave the commission broad powers to discipline anyone who disgraces the uniform.

Until then, Florida was revoking police licenses only upon a criminal conviction, and these were few.

But the new law granted the commission wide authority to suspend, revoke or refuse to license anyone failing to maintain good moral character.

Doubts about Newson`s character arose while he was in training to join the Pompano force.

The commission refused to license him, citing ``far too many unanswered questions`` about his fitness. The reason: five incidents in the FBI`s crime computer from 1967 to 1973.

Newson`s rap sheet revealed arrests for involvement in an auto theft, purse snatching and assault to murder in Jacksonville. Two of the charges were dismissed, but the outcome of the assault charge could not be determined, records state.

Newson also had been arrested for assault in Fort Lauderdale and cited for failure to appear on a Broward County traffic warrant. He was acquitted of assault and paid a $30 traffic fine.

``We should not emphasize what happened 11 or more years ago.`` Morton wrote in an appeal to the commission. Morton is now a commander with the Broward Sheriff`s Office.

Morton stressed that Newson had forsaken life on the streets. He had graduated from college, worked as a schoolteacher, had a family and had become active in his church.

Morton`s letter did not mention that Newson also had lied on his job application about his string of arrests -- an action that alone is grounds for revocation of, or denial of, a police license.

Nor did Morton mention that Newson had been the subject of three spouse-abuse or assault complaints in the early 1970s -- reports that were in Newson`s personnel file.

In one 1974 case, Newson was accused of abducting his wife and young son at gunpoint. He was not arrested. The reasons are not specified in Pompano police records. Morton said he was not aware of Newson`s problems at the time.